Ontario Forest Biomonitoring Network: Tree, Salamander, and Invasive Species Data

The Ontario Forest Biomonitoring Network (OFBN) monitors the health of mixed hardwood forests across southern and central Ontario. Data includes individual tree stress measurements from 111 plots, salamander counts from 14 plots, and invasive plant presence. It is provided by the Government of Ontario and was last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Model forest health trends based on the Decline Index, a weighted average of tree stress symptoms.
• Analyze the relationship between invasive plant species presence and native tree regeneration data from 102 plots.
• Study salamander population dynamics based on counts from 14 monitoring plots.
• Assess forest floor decomposition and habitat based on woody debris data from 102 plots.

Strengths

• Includes data from 111 individual tree monitoring plots, providing a multi-site perspective.
• Integrates multiple data types: tree health, salamander counts, invasive species, and woody debris.
• Data is provided in multiple formats (TXT, SHP, XLS, PDF, HTML) for different analysis needs.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The temporal coverage for the data collection is not specified.

Provenance

Source

Government of Ontario | Gouvernement de l'Ontario

Collection Method

Monitoring network collecting visual tree assessments, species counts, and plot surveys.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 13:42:02.664781; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Southern and central Ontario, Canada